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An 'embarrassed' Vin Scully recounts fall, hospital visit

March 21, 2010 | 11:07
am

Legendary Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully said he was "embarrassed over all the fuss" in the aftermath of his fall at home and brief hospitalization, and that he now feels fine and is ready to broadcast Sunday's game.

In a five-minute session with reporters at the Dodgers' spring-training camp at Camelback Ranch, Scully talked about the outpouring of concern among his fans and said "I do appreciate that immensely and humbly, and I guess that’s why I’m embarrassed to put them through anything at all, especially when it was so simple and harmless."

Scully, 82, took off his sports jacket and showed reporters his right elbow, which had a dark bruise about the width of a baseball. The Hall of Fame announcer said he also had five stitch-like "staples," needed to close a cut in the back of his head from the fall.

Scully explained that he'd been fighting a cough and, while reading in bed Thursday night at his Hidden Hills home, "all of a sudden I felt one of these big bronchial coughs coming up, and I thought I would get to the bathroom. I jumped out of bed. Bad idea. I got dizzy."

He said he then tried to reach the bathroom but had to cross a marble floor "and all of a sudden I blacked out. [I] woke up, sitting on the floor, my wife calling 911, blood on the floor." Scully was taken to a nearby hospital for observation and released Friday morning.

Scully said he had suffered a so-called vasovagal episode that causes fainting and "I turned my own lights out for a split second. And that's really it. I never felt I was in any trouble at all."

Asked if he now had any restrictions on his daily activity, Scully joked: "I’m supposed to cut back on dangling participles ,and I’m not allowed to split an infinitive for at least another week, but otherwise no.”

Scully arrived in Phoenix to announce his first spring-training game of the season Sunday between the Dodgers and the Cleveland Indians.